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Appium vs Perfecto comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Appium
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (9th), Regression Testing Tools (7th)
Perfecto
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Performance Testing Tools (12th), Functional Testing Tools (19th), Mobile App Testing Tools (5th), Test Automation Tools (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Appium and Perfecto aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Appium is designed for Mobile Development Platforms and holds a mindshare of 2.7%, down 3.2% compared to last year.
Perfecto, on the other hand, focuses on Mobile App Testing Tools, holds 6.7% mindshare, up 5.1% since last year.
Mobile Development Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Appium2.7%
OutSystems9.1%
Mendix8.7%
Other79.5%
Mobile Development Platforms
Mobile App Testing Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Perfecto6.7%
Tricentis Tosca23.0%
OpenText Functional Testing21.8%
Other48.5%
Mobile App Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Ramanagowda Hullur - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Engineer at Stryker
Automation has transformed mobile testing workflows and delivers reliable end-to-end coverage
One painful point that still exists with Appium, especially in iOS mobile application testing, is its reliance on WebDriverAgent, which creates a lot of stress during setup for beginners. Although many improvements have been made since MCP, that area still needs attention. Additionally, improvements in the locator strategies are needed to adapt to modern technologies for locating mobile applications developed outside traditional Apple or core scripting technologies like Swift, Java, or Kotlin. A community needs to emerge, driven by a set of industry leaders who can help people and contribute to the community, especially since platforms like Stack Overflow have diminished in relevance due to the rise of AI. If I could change or improve one thing about Appium, I would focus on enhancing Appium MCP to ensure it delivers what it promises reliably.
reviewer1963857 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Quality at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
The network testing can be accessed from anywhere in the world, but the UI needs revamping
Recently, the network testing component where we can use Perfecto on devices has been the most valuable feature. There is very little competition out there in this regard. We use it for 4G and 5G testing of launched 5G and 4G brands. So, the network testing can be accessed from anywhere in the world. That is very valuable for us. Perfecto is very good when it comes to executing cross-platform testing. We have just gotten started on cross-browser testing. We already use Perfecto for the native-application testing on multiple devices. I think now we also use Perfecto for browser-related testing. So, all the cross-browser testing works well. We got a couple of licenses that we use. We can mostly see usage over time using the device logs. This is what matters the most to us, e.g., what team is using a device for how long. We use Cypress, and it supports it quite well. We use APM, and it also supports that quite well. We used to use the native quantum framework as well in the past, which was obviously well-supported, but now we have moved onto Cypress and APM. Also, we have Applitools, which is not open source, but a paid proprietary tool.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This is the best test automation tool for any mobile test automation engineer."
"Appium's wide support of programming languages is valuable."
"We get a list that shows all devices that are connected to the system."
"This solution has improved our organization in terms of efficiency."
"The solution is stable."
"It is an indispensable tool for mobile automation helps much in converting manual test cases to automated scripts."
"For the particular use case we used Appium for, we felt that it served our purpose completely, and we haven't had any issues with the Python Client for Appium."
"It can be used with different programming languages."
"It has saved hours of manual testing time, costs and efforts."
"We have seen the biggest improvement in cost savings, initially saving $2.6 million a year just on roaming charges."
"When the scripts are stable, Perfecto is awesome."
"I also like the reporting functions. We are constantly downloading these reports and sharing them with our final customers. They help us understand what kind of bugs are happening through the applications. The recording feature is handy because it lets us see a video of the process we run through the pipeline and discover the point at which the automation is breaking."
"Overall, it has helped massively to speed up our testing efforts and not just from a device point of view."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is that it covers all types of devices on the market allowing you to test different versions of an operating system."
"It creates a faster production cycle and is quick to market. Things get deployed earlier because the testing happens on time. We can do a lot of panelization, so a lot of test phases can happen in a panel. People don't have to wait for a device to come to them. They can access multiple devices at the same time and do testing at the same time."
"Perfecto is a game-changer for us, we save at least $10,000 monthly."
 

Cons

"Appium doesn't recognize IDs placed by our developers on nested elements when we use React Native for iOS; it just sees the whole page and one element."
"What needs improvement in Appium is its documentation. It needs to give more context on the libraries that Appium is using under the hood. For example, my team is using Appium for Android automation, and a lot of times, I feel that there's functionality that's available through the Appium interface, that exists within the UIAutomator, but there aren't a lot of useful or helpful resources on the internet to find that information, so it would be good to have some linkage with the underlying platform itself. Another room for improvement in Appium is that it's buggy sometimes. For example, at times, there's a bug in the inspector application that doesn't allow me to save my desired capability set, so it would be nice to get that bug fixed, but overall, Appium is a good tool. The Touch Actions functionality in Appium also needs improvement. For example, if I want to initiate a scroll on the device that I'm running Appium on, sometimes Swipe works, but in other situations, I have to explicitly use action chains, so I'm not too sure what's the better approach. What I'd like to see in the next version of Appium is a more intelligent and more intuitive AppiumLibrary, in terms of identifying menus and scroll bars, etc., because right now, I'm unsure if I have to do a lot of export reversals to get to the elements I'm looking for. It would be nice to have some functionality built in, which would allow me to easily get those exports."
"The tool needs to add a dependency manager."
"Image recognition could be improved. We have some images in our mobile applications. It should be able to run from the cloud, so we can automate the catcher."
"The product was a bit difficult to install. It wasn’t easy. We had issues."
"The challenging part with Appium is that installation can be a bit tricky. It can be challenging to set up in Android versus iOS environments."
"Configuration-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement."
"They should add an in-built framework."
"It does well for mobile testing, but when it comes to the web aspect, it is lagging a little bit in terms of execution."
"Previously, we used the cradle. Every time the mobile was blocking it, we would have to ask Perfecto to provide another one. That took a lot of time away from us."
"It would be nice if there were some kind of AI to compile a list of available devices. Currently, we have to look at the web interface to see the available devices, but the pipelines can't do it on their own there. We always need to do this manually, so it would be better if this feature were automated."
"If we could run an accessibility test in Perfecto against builds, it would help us a lot. Currently, that's a very manual process for us. We haven't found a tool that can do accessibility scans for iOS and doesn't depend on engineering effort. Having a feature related to that would be really awesome for us."
"We have had some issues with performance, which is something that should be improved."
"It is slow compared to physical device testing. The interactive speed could be improved."
"It would be ideal if there was a complete integration with other test management tools and other applications like HPLM, Micro Focus, or Microsoft Azure."
"We've had a couple of issues lately with videos not loading or browsers dying after some execution, although that happens very rarely."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open source solution so it does not cost anything for licensing or otherwise."
"Appium is free and open-source."
"The pricing of Appium is fine."
"The solution is free."
"As far as I know, Appium is a free solution. It's not for commercial use."
"The solution is open source."
"We found out that we could explore features of the solution for 30 days trial. We can switch to a permanent license later if we want."
"The price is good for people to be able to make a favorable decision for the value."
"It's definitely on the higher end of prices for this type of service."
"Although Perfecto is a good product for us to use, it is a bit expensive. It takes management a bit of work to find the appropriate funding for us to keep Perfecto. I imagine there could be some way to make it more accessible."
"This is an expensive solution compared to others, by 30% to 40%."
"Pricing-wise, it is fine. It is not as expensive as what we used to have in the past from HP, IBM, and others. It is decently priced."
"Perfecto's price is excellent compared to other products with similar features. It was the lowest of the three we evaluated. We also established a partnership with Perfecto, so they provide discounts when we sell Perfecto projects and licenses to our customers."
"I am not sure about its pricing, but from our perspective, licensing has been easy. Anytime I have new users or requests for users that want to get added, it's a very simple process. I just give the architectural owner of the product the name and email address, and they're able to easily add a new user. We don't have any issues in regards to getting licenses, but I don't have any insights into pricing."
"Pricing is an area where Perfecto can do a little better. When we obtain additional licenses, we enter into negotiations with them."
"Perfecto is about 30-40% cheaper than Device Anywhere. That was a big reason why we switched. Perfecto also solves some of the issues that we had with Device Anywhere. We have grown by 100% since we started to use Perfecto, and now we have devices roaming. When we look at the competition, we would still stick with Perfecto."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend Appium?
I do recommend Appium. It is an open-source solution and completely free of charge. We use Appium and Appium Studio as our base for any type of mobile automation for testing. It has a great interfa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Appium?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Appium is straightforward since it is open-source, and I currently have no concerns about using it.
What needs improvement with Appium?
One painful point that still exists with Appium, especially in iOS mobile application testing, is its reliance on WebDriverAgent, which creates a lot of stress during setup for beginners. Although ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

No data available
Perfecto Mobile, Perfecto Web
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nuvizz, Coupa Software, Eventbrite, Evernote
Virgin Media, Paychex, Rabobank, R+V, Discover
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